Analyzing our pop culture footprint one jump shot at a time.

Category: Pop Culture

Logan is joined by Coray, Kyle, and Al to discuss the NBA offseason including IT signing with the Nuggets and where they stand in the West, LeBron’s seismic shift to the Lakers, Cousins and the Warriors ruining the NBA (again), and the Kawhi-DeMar fiasco before jumping into our recent trip to Las Vegas for NBA Summer League in which we lost all our money playing craps and bumped into a few celebrities.

Maria and Logan are back discussing MTV’s the Challenge, starting with the Final Reckoning trailer that dropped, each of the team pairings for the new season, what the hell is happening with Bananas, and who the favorites are for season 32. We then jump into recapping the last 3 episodes of Champs vs Stars starting with episode 7, where the Miz starts putting teams into pairs, Louise morphing from fan favorite to villain, Jozea’s inability to be interesting or swim, drama at all the eliminations, why we need the old Wes back, Casper and Louise dominating their elimination round, team Dad Bod guaranteeing themselves a spot in the final and if Kailah and Drake have a chance to beat the White team.

Self professed Jean-Claude Superfan, Dave, joins the podcast to discuss which 80’s star made the better bad movies. In order, the four films we chose for the pantheon include Commando, Bloodsport, Predator, and Street Fighter.

Hollywood expert Jono P. joins Logan to discuss a few films that have more interesting backstory than the main story being told on screen. BEWARE SPOILER-PHOBES, we spoil more than a few movies in this podcast. The show starts with a breakdown of cult horror classic, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, then we explore whether Game of Thrones focuses too much on backstory and the show runners are diverting the audience attention from the real important things happening in Westeros. Other movies discussed during the ‘Is this a definitive story for this character’ section include: the Star Wars Prequels, Phone Booth, Locke, Jumanji, Cube, Cabin in the Woods, the Alien movies and PROMETHEUS.

After the lackluster news coming out of Comic Con 2015, Logan and Jono felt compelled to discuss (bitch and moan) about the Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and DC panels. The topics range from creepy questions asked at the Game of Thrones Q+A to how little Zack Snyder really knows about the characters of Batman or Superman. The show closes with a few movie recommendations of what we’ve been watching.

Host Logan is joined by GoT expert Jono and the jet setting Matty Mo to discuss the first episode of season five of Game of Thrones. The show kicks off with a discussion of the first flashback in show history, showing Cersei’s meeting with a future predicting witch. The roundtable goes on to discuss other events in the episode, Jon Snow is approached by Stannis about trying to gain Mance Rayder’s trust, Tyrion and Varys have fled King’s Landing and set out to find Danny, and Littlefinger deciding Sansa’s fate.

Logan and Brian are joined by Hollywood insider Jono and discuss the ridiculousness that is Furious 7. THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE EPISODE (and not just the one that saves Paul Walker) The show kicks off with a discussion about the lack of consequences to the violence and car crashes in the series, and then the show divulges into how the F and F series has become an amalgam of every modern action franchise. Everyone applauds the class with which the film dealt with the passing of Walker and Jono explains why everyone who sees the movie should be happy with the product, no matter how absurd the action gets. Finally, the show closes with the group hating on Ludacris and Tyreese’s awful characterization and everyone talks about their favorite car in the series.

Summer is the time when Hollywood throws sub par movies at the general audience and expects us to come out in droves for the same mediocre rehashings every year. The problem isn’t a lack of creative ideas, as evidenced by the fact that half the films on the list are ‘original properties’. The problem is that the execs are only greenlighting films that abide strictly by the Save the Cat! brand of cookie cutter storytelling. It was innovative when it came out, it’s tired now. Time to ‘re-invent’ the way we write screenplays. The Dark Knight nailed the dark tone super hero movie, not every subsequent film has to try to adopt that dark, brooding nature of its main characters and world. That is where these six films fail on a fundamental level. (PLEASE ASSUME SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.)

Man of Steel: This movie is simply a butchering of the Superman character, but to the non comic book reader, that’s not a huge issue. This is Snyder’s vision of Superman, much like how the Burton 1989 Batman doesn’t exactly match up with the comic mythos. It’s totally cool to have a different take on an established character and universe, but when you have David S. Goyer writing cringe worthy dialogue and completely missing the point of everything that the Superman character stands for? Now there’s the big problems. Also, is a summer comic book blockbuster the right vehicle to deal with 9/11 imagery? This flick is just a disaster, in both content and character development, of which there is none. It’s actually more of an alien movie with a superficial coat of DC paint. The scenes on Krypton were creative, but the Jor-El character spends more time on-screen than Superman himself! At least he has a purpose. The worst part of this movie? The fact that it made enough money for WB Studios to greenlight Snyder as the Director of the recently announced Batman vs. Superman AND the Justice League movie, so if you think they destroyed a ton of buildings in Man of Steel, lets just wait and see what the next few summers have in store for the DC fans.

Pacific Rim: While some found Guillermo del Toro’s latest movie to be an under rated masterpiece, there are others of us who appreciate actual characters and not cardboard cutouts pretending to be actors. The writing was underwhelming, especially considering the other masterpieces he has churned out in the past. Maybe this film wasn’t really one of the worst of the summer, I greatly enjoyed the Kaiju and Jaeger designs, but there was so little to care about in way of characters, that this film has to be seen as a disappointment. Compared to a film like Pan’s Labyrinth, which focuses on creative storytelling versus how heavily del Toro focused on just the visual style of Pacific Rim, this 2013 blockbuster was not worth the effort that the filmmaker put into it. GdT is a fantastic director, but this is by far his most shallow film.